muguetdemai's Blog

I'm having a nervous breakdown.   I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't focus at work.   I keep reading this email over and over and over and over and over and over.    He practically destroyed my life, and then he sends me this abusive email trying to make me feel guilty for not doing more for him.    He didn't care about me one iota, not one little bit.   All he cared about was how much he could soak me for.

It's all been too much, I just can't take anymore.    I can't be nice anymore the price is just too high.   My whole   value system is breaking down.    I can't take anymore.   I can't do it anymore.   I just can't.   The world is a cesspool and I'm just not going to be a part of it anymore.

I'm just absolutely shaking with anger still.   I"m sick to my stomach and not able to sleep.   I'm so stupid for trying to be a nice person and help people.   I'll never do it again.

This is what I did for him:

1.   Got him a job at my company.

2.   Helped him move and unpack his apartment.

3.   Helped him with his grocery shopping for months

4.   Drove him to the hospital for surgery twice and waited for him and took him home and ran out to the pharmacy for him.    And spent the day with him in the ER while he was undergoing tests, and visited him in the hospital on multiple occasions and brought him flowers, his cell phone, and fed his cat every day.

5.   Constantly cleaned his kitchen.

6.   Cleaned out his back bedroom and set it up at my expense so his daughter would have a place to stay when she came to visit.

7.   Bought him a laptop and several other gifts and many dinners.

8.   Gave him $5,000 so he could "start his own business" when he lost his job at my company.

What it cost me:

1.   A whole lot of money

2.   Hurt my relationship with my boyfriend.   In the spring, he got pissed, he just wanted to have one conversation that didn't revolve around R, and he was totally right.   R was draining the life out of me and I was so exhausted and upset that R was all I talked about.

3.   Damaged my health.   All of the running around, errands and cleaning totally exhausted me and I got bronchitis and a sinus infection that didn't go away and I had to stay in bed for a month.

4.   Upset my parents.   They could clearly see the toll he was taking on my health and they were upset.   They know nothing about the money.   If they did, they would be absolutely FURIOUS with me.

5.   Cost me my job.   I've really been trying to put a positive spin on it and let it go because it worked out for the best, but I just can't.   His poor performance reflected so badly on me that after they let him go they no longer trusted my judgment and finally let me go.   It was totally humiliating.

R was totally wrapped up in self-pity, he always had an excuse and when that failed he blamed everyone else.    He didn't care one iota about the damage he did to my life.    I paid through the nose to try to help him, and it wasn't nearly enough for him, he felt he deserved SO much more.    How much more could I sacrifice for him?   He wouldn't have been satisfied until I died for him.   He absolutely pushed my life to the brink and then made it all about himself.    He never, ever cared, not the slightest bit, how much he was damaging my life.   He was too self-centered to care, and that email proved it.    

This whole thing is just making me completely sick.   Yes, I feel badly that in the end I couldn't help him, but he did have an obligation to try to help himself.    The final straw was when I was too sick to drive so he had to come over to pick up the money to pay his rent and he tried to guilt me into going out with him because he was lonely, and I asked him if he had gotten something done that I had been on him to do for weeks and he said no and I asked him why and he said "I don't know."    That was it for me.   I couldn't do anymore for him.   He expected me to totally exhaust myself for him, but he refused to do the same to help himself.

The hardest part about all of this is I genuinely cared about him and tried to help him, and I really, really wanted to see him succeed, but what could I do?    I've been sick, very sick.   I've been totally exhausted.   But I never made excuses, always did the best I could and didn't stop to feel sorry for myself, which is why I always made it through the hard times.

Before I walked away, I got a few outside opinions from people I respect about the situation, and they all said the same thing--walk away.    I normally don't encourage comments on my blog, because I just use it to vent, but if you've made it this far, I want your opinion.    Was I unfair to him?    Was I out of line in walking away from the situation?    What would you have done?

I was up sick all night, and I'm exhausted.    That email just made me sick to my stomach.    He ripped apart my boyfriend for having the audacity to care about my health and welfare.    My well-being simply did not matter to R, it got in the way of him getting his needs met.    My parents were expressing grave concern about our "friendship" as well.   They saw how exhausted I was becoming,. and wanted me to distance myself from R.   My parents were relieved when I finally did.   R thought it was pressure from my boyfriend that changed me, he was wrong, it was exhaustion.   Until my body gave out and I finally got sick.   And R didn't care.   Not the tiniest little bitty bit.   Not at all.   It hurts.    It's sickening to be treated that way by someone.   It hurts a lot.

 He never cared about me.   He didn't care at all that I was exhausted.   He didn't care that I was sick, he just cared about what more I could do for him.   And that hurt.   A lot.    And that email was just a big reminder of that.    He never cared about me at all.   It hurt a lot, and still does.

And that's really the heart of the matter.   It just hurt that I tried so hard and he just didn't care about me as a person at all.   I gave him a couple of movies to watch.   Would it have killed him to spend a couple of hours watching a movie?   But they just sat on his table for a year.    They would have given him a lot of insight into who I was as a person, but he didn't care about that.    I gave the same two movies to my boyfriend, and he watched them, and he got exactly what I was trying to show him.   I give books to my boyfriend to read and he reads them. If I had given them to R they just would have collected dust, because he didn't care at all about me as a person.

That's what a true friend does--cares about you as a person.   Cares when you're sick and says rest, not do more for me.   R rejected who I was as a person, while still expecting more and more and more from me.   It's dehumanizing and it hurts.    Why couldn't he, for once, extend himself for me?    Why couldn't he care how exhausted I was?   Why couldn't he care how sick I was?   Why did it have to be about him ALL the time?   He never took the time to get to know me or understand me as a person.   I truly do get that part of that was because he was sick, but how much energy does it take to watch a movie?   Or to say "I know you're sick, just get some rest and call me when you feel better" instead of demanding more from me.    I deserve friends who take an interest in me, in who I am as a person, and not just what I can do for them.

I lay down and try to go to sleep and I keep getting up because I'm nauseated and sick to my stomach.   All I wanted was for him to care that I was sick.   That's it.   If he could have just cared that I was sick, it would have made a world of difference.   But he didn't care, because he didn't care about me, just what I could do for him.   And when I had to stop because I was too sick, he just treated me terribly.    I guess I knew that was going to be the outcome all along.   I dreaded reading that email.   Today I hoped for the best and was deeply disappointed.    He never cared that I was sick.   Not one teeny, tiny, itty, bittiest little bit.   And that's what hurts the most.

I hated how things ended with him, but I was to the point where I was constantly suppressing my feelings and it was making me sick.   But I couldn't tell him the truth.   He was too immature, too self-centered.   He used to brag about how he would lose his temper and damage cars or beat people up and he just scared me.    He still scares me, and that email didn't help at all.    He's so self-centered and self-righteous and as the anger is burning off, the terror is setting in.   I have absolutely, positively learned my lesson about being nice to people.

So much built up and I just couldn't deal with it anymore because I couldn't talk to him.   He scared me.   I'm so sick of having to pay such a high price for trying to be helpful.   I'm scared and exhausted and sick of dealing with this.

I don't even want to leave my room anymore.   People disgust me.    Not one tiny ounce of gratitude, ever, for all that I did for him.   I was sick with bronchitis and a sinus infection and he was upset that I wouldn't go out to the bar with him.    Because I didn't deserve a break, I didn't deserve to rest, I should just be grateful that I get to devote my life to serving him.   He's entitled to more, so much more than I had to give. ENTITLED!!!!

I'm so disgusted.   I"m so sick of being kind and giving and being treated like garbage in return.

I don't have the energy to give everyone everything that they feel that they are entitled to.   I just don't have it in me. And if they don't get everything to which they feel the are entitled, they get abusive.   And I've had enough.   Just absolutely enough.

That's it.   That's it in a nutshell.   I've just had enough of horrible, awful, self-centered, selfish entitled people.   They disgust me.    We all need help, there's nothing wrong with that.    Where people go wrong is to demand what they want, and then act like it's not nearly good enough.    It's horrible and it's arrogant.   I'm sick of the arrogance.    I've seriously had enough.   I want to start screaming at arrogant people.   It disgusts me.   He made no contribution to the friendship, I carried him, and he acted like he was doing me a favor by allowing me to be his friend!!!   Absolute arrogance.

It's so frustrating to deal with.   Sickeningly frustrating and draining.    His "friendship" was SO incredibly draining.    He was a conniving, manipulative, arrogant emotional vampire and I'm so happy to be free of him. His email just confirmed every bad thing I didn't want to think about him.    He's totally confirmed it.    I'm so much better off without him.   I'm just sorry that it took me so long to realize it.

He totally exhausted me with his demands, and then in this email acted like I should have been honored to server him.    The arrogance just blows me away.

I'm so upset I had to leave work early today.   I told my ex all about the email.   It wasn't the easiest thing to do, but I wouldn't put it past this turd to try and blackmail me to get his money grubbing hands on more.   At least if he tries to contact me again I can have my ex deal with it.   He's fantastic at dealing with nasty people.

He said all kinds of nasty things about my boyfriend.   Yes, my boyfriend does have his demons.    He's earned over 20 medals in 21 years of service fighting in three wars for this country.    He has PTSD.    But he's a good, honorable man who treats me with nothing but kindness, respect and love.    Things that little weasel knows nothing about.

That putrid little lump of shit acts like he's God's gift to this earth.   Like everyone should bow down and be grateful to serve him.   There's no humility in him at all.   Just arrogance and entitlement.   I'm so pissed at myself for wasting so much time trying to be nice to him.   BIG mistake.   BIG HUGE mistake.   One I will never make again.    He's totally soured me on being nice to strangers.

I'm enraged.   Just seething.   I'm having trouble sitting still.   I couldn't focus at work.   I'm so completely and totally furious at his attitude, his sense of entitlement, his arrogance.    I'm disgusted with myself for being such a chump.   I'm so upset I don't even know what to do with myself.

I don't know what he was trying to accomplish by sending that email, but all he did was confirm that I did the right thing by shutting him out of my life.   He was exhausting me and he just didn't care.   He felt he was entitled to more.    He's got a hell of a lot of nerve.    It just blows my mind how entitled and arrogant he is.   I'm just blown away.

I keep reading the email over and over and I'm thoroughly disgusted at what an awful, nasty, manipulative, conniving person I let into my life.    He's so completely horrible and I'm disgusted by the whole situation.    

I've learned my lesson about trying to help people.    There truly are people that just are not worth it.

I'm disgusted.   Absolutely, completely and totally disgusted.   But this is a good motivation for change.   I'm definitely ready to start making some serious changes in my life.

He was a selfish, conniving, greedy, manipulative man and I'm just so sorry I ever met him.   I was helping him because I was a nice person, but he didn't get everything he felt he was entitled to.    I'm so completely disgusted by his nastiness.   No gratitude at all for bending over backwards to help him, just ranting about how he didn't get everything he was entitled to.   I'm so completely disgusted with myself for allowing him into my life.    Mean, selfish, nasty, greedy man

I am absolutely SEETHING.    The more I read it, the angrier I get.    Horrible, entitled, greedy lump of shit.   I am FURIOUS!!!!!

All of my worst fears about humanity have been confirmed.   It is SOOOO true that no good deed goes unpunished.   Being compassionate equals being a chump.   Maybe it's time to start thinking about ways to punish the guilty.    That's starting to sound like the real way to make the world a better place.

He never cared that his demands were exhausting me because he was a selfish, greedy man out to wring all he could from me.    He didn't care that I was exhausted, or that I was sick, he was just mad because he couldn't get more, more, more, more, more.

I'm not done with being nice to people, but I'm going to be more careful about evaluating their worthiness.   I'm not going to care about people who have no capacity to care about me.    I watched this video by this Buddhist monk about how compassion can change people, but he was wrong.   I've tried and I've failed.   You simply cannot be nice to everyone you meet.    There truly are bad people out there who just want to attach themselves to nice people and drain them dry.

I'm angry.    Angrier than I've ever been.   I've wasted far too much of my life caring about others.   It hasn't been worth it, it's just been a waste of time and resources.   I've wasted my life trying to show completely toxic people compassion.   And it's just poisoned me.    I'm sick to my stomach I'm so furious.

But I'm not shutting all people out.    My boyfriend is a good, honorable, decent, kind, loving person.   If I wasn't a good person at heart, I never would have ended up with him, and he makes it all worth it.    I love him with all of my heart and soul, and he reaffirms my faith in the goodness of people every day.    I'm lucky to have him in my life, and I have to focus on that, not on the negative, toxic people out to take me for everything I"m worth.

I finally worked up the energy to read an email that my "sick friend' sent me in July.   I just didn't have the energy to deal with it until now, and I'm glad I didn't read it until now.   He has revealed himself to be a completely awful, horrible, nasty, selfish, self-centered, vile person.   He's just completely awful.   I'm so sorry that I ever helped him, or was ever nice to him.    He's been completely blocked and removed from my life.   I'm not dealing with people that treat me badly anymore.

I've known so many completely awful, vile, narcissistic people in my life, and I beat myself up because I wasn't good enough for them, but nothing ever would have been.    It's time to stop.    I've tried to help people and make a difference in the world, and it's time to stop that, too.   You simply cannot be nice to everyone, there are too many bad people in the world who just want to take advantage of kindness.   I'm not letting them in anymore.   I've always felt bad about judging people, but deciding that you don't want to be friends with people that will just take advantage of my good nature and suck the life out of me is not being judgmental, it's treating myself with more respect. 

I watched a movie last night, "Get Low."    I cried from start to finish, and once it was over, I sobbed, and I'm still crying this morning.    It hit a raw nerve.   It made me realize how deeply ashamed I am.   Deeply, deeply ashamed.   It doesn't matter that the bar was set way, way too high.   It doesn't matter that it wasn't humanly possible to achieve what people needed for me to do.   The only thing I feel is that I failed.   That I let people down.    I'm so horribly ashamed of myself I don't even want to face the world anymore.    I am absolutely merciless on myself.   But no more so than anyone else has been.

I've been holding up the world for years, and now I no longer have the strength, and it is crushing me emotionally.    But the more devastated I feel emotionally, the better I feel physically.    My asthma is so much better.   I can easily breathe deeply in and out.    I'm no longer having the horrible, debilitating bouts of pain in my arms and legs.

I've been stuck at the very end of myself for a long time.   I felt too guilty about doing what was necessary to take care of myself.   There were always so many other that needed my time, energy, attention, resources so much more than I did.   I pushed myself to the very brink.    Part of what makes healing so difficult is getting over the guilt of taking the resources necessary and focusing them on myself.   I'm letting go.   I'm collapsing.   I'm making my life all about me.   I might be miserable for a while, but at least I'm not stuck anymore.   It may not look like it from the outside, but this is progress.

I lie awake in bed dreading the morning when I have to leave my room.   I'm only happy when I'm in my room, it's the only place I feel safe.   It's all just become too much.    I panic when I have to deal with people.   I just don't want to be a part of the world anymore.

It's the middle of the night and I can't sleep.   So many people, so many faces, so many voices screaming out of the past that I didn't do enough, I fell short, I am a failure.   I can hear all of the criticism over the years.   I'm not good enough, no where near good enough.   I always fall short.   When I think I'm coming close, the bar moves, in order to get to the finish I have to keep doing more and more and more.   I've been treated like a robot for years.   Like I can just keep providing and providing without needing anything in return.   There was never any kindness, never any understanding, never any warmth, just more and better.   Everyone always deserved more and better and I deserved nothing.

I"m becoming paranoid.   I had a bad day on Friday at work and couldn't get anything right and I'm still beating myself up over it.   It was totally beneath me and unacceptable.   I'm treated like a human being where I work now, and I'm so afraid of losing that that I'm driving myself harder and harder.   I'm so used to nothing ever being good enough, I can't get out of that mode.   More and better, more and better, more and better.   Nothing is ever good enough.   I'm cracking under the pressure.

I can hear every bad thing everyone has ever said to me ringing in my head.   Nothing was ever good enough.   I"m angry with myself for constantly falling short.   If I was smarter, stronger, better maybe I could have overcome it.   But I was just never good enough.   Until now.   But I don't even think it matters anymore.   I'm too frayed.   Too damaged.   Too exhausted.   The only hope now is to build a house and lock myself in it and stop talking to people.   I can't cope with the weight of my life.   I can't cope with it at all.   

People always stack the deck, right the game so it's always heads they win, tails you lose.   It's a rigged game, it can't be won.   They have an argument for everything.  If you need a little warmth, a little kindness, you are a people pleaser and that makes you totally worthless.   Reviled.   But it's a basic, human need.   So is respect.   There never was any of that.   Never.   None.   I was treated like human garbage, worthless, except that there was still so much more I could do for them, and if I would only do more and better, then maybe I could be treated better.   But the bar kept moving.   And moving.   And moving.   I was never good enough.  Never.

I feel like a failure.  I feel worthless.  I feel ashamed that I could never do better.   I'm crushed, destroyed, devastated, exhausted.    But along the way, I did manage to find the one thing that none of them will ever have--true love.   My boyfriend loves me for who I am.   He never moves the bar.   I'm easily good enough.   He showers me with warmth, kindness, love, understanding, respect.   He's so very, very good to me and I'm so grateful to have him in my life.   His love is the only thing that's keeping me from losing my mind completely.

I'm glad my boyfriend is gone these days.   I'm returning to the funk I was in just before I met him.   Two years ago I absolutely reached the end of myself.   I kind of camped out there and made it home for a while, but I never made much progress in coming back.   I am profoundly burned out.   I'm putting a great facade on when I'm around other people, but when it's quiet, I'm a total wreck.    I'm facing all of my inadequacies and self-loathing.   All of the voices from the past, telling me how I'm not good enough.   Too many people have treated me like "Is that all you're going to do for me?   But I'm entitled to so much MORE!!!"   Nothing I ever did was good enough.   Nothing.   It was always more and better, More and Better, MORE and BETTER, MORE AND BETTER, MORE AND BETTER!!!   Nothing was ever good enough to merit a little warmth, a little kindness, a little understanding.   No one cared if I was sick, if I was tired, if I had put in too many hours, they just wanted more, More, MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!!   I feel horribly inadequate, totally unlovable and completely useless.   I fault myself for everything--it's a habit I've developed over the years as a pre-emptive strike.    I don't care anymore, I just want to be left alone.   I used to keep very, very busy so I didn't have to face all of this.   Now my life is quiet and all of these things torture me constantly.   I'm exhausted all of the time.   I'm having problems with flashes of anger--people in traffic, stories in the news.   Nothing serious or connected to me.   So many things make me angry.   Mostly I'm angry with myself for never being good enough.   

I've been reading on how to overcome burnout, but so far, nothing is clicking.    I think it's going to be a matter of just resting for a while.   I'm completely exhausted.    It was too hard.   It was just way, way too hard, but no one cared.   All they cared about was more and better until I had nothing left to give.   Now I'm empty.   Nothing left to give and I'm useless.   

I've had so many depersonalizing experiences.   I wasn't even allowed to be a human being, with basic human needs, and it just gutted me.    I'm treated wonderfully now, both by my boyfriend and on my job, but it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference.   Even on my job, where I'm totally respected, I feel threatened by everyone.   I feel like everyone hates me.   They don't, they totally don't, but I can't get rid of the feeling.   I berate myself for everything I perceive I say or do wrong.    It's overwhelming me.   I try to block it out, to distract myself, but at the end of the week I lost my grip on it.   I just want to hide from the world.   Just lock myself away and never have to interact with anyone besides my boyfriend ever again.   I love our world, I'm happy in our world, and I miss it.   But I can't help feeling that this separation, this process that I'm going through is right where I need to be right now in order to finally grow beyond it.

I put my anger on when I leave the safety and comfort of my room.   I wear it like a coat to protect me from the elements.  I feel safe with it on.

Last Wednesday my son had his driving test.   I was going to take him, but his father was on vacation and wanted to take him.   My son did extremely well on his driving test.   When they were leaving the parking lot after the test, his father pushed him into making a left turn my son didn't feel comfortable making.   My ex yelled at him that he wasn't going, so my son went and got hit by another car.    My son was driving a car that my parents had given us.   It was my mother's car and was extremely well maintained over the years.   I'm waiting to find out from the collision shop to find out if it's totalled.   We didn't have full insurance on it, only no fault.   I'm paying for the repairs out of pocket, and naturally I have to pay for the because my ex has no money.    The very first thing my son did when he got the car over to the side of the road was call me.   He hadn't even turned the car off yet.   He was hysterical.   That was the worst part.   My son is so extremely even-keeled, he *never* gets upset over anything.   Fortunately by the end of the day he told me he had let it go, and he told me that he felt guilty about not feeling worse about it.   I told him that he's doing exactly the right thing in letting it go.   You can't dwell on the past.   My ex husband thanked me very sincerely for handling it so well, and for not making him feel even worse about the situation.   But what can you do?   It's an accident, he didn't do it on purpose.   My ex stepped up and took full responsibility, and I was proud of him for that.   We'll get the car fixed or get it replaced and put this behind us.   No one was hurt, that's all that matters.

For years I was like my son and things just rolled off of me.   I didn't get upset about anything.   I still have the capacity to let things roll off of me, why am I holding onto so much anger?    The answer is, I'm realizing that I only hold on to it when I feel the need to protect myself.   I don't need to protect myself from my ex, he's not a threat to me anymore.

Thursday night I practically passed out after work and I woke up late, which is extremely rare for me.   That only happens once ever several years.   I got about 12 hours of sleep that night.   Saturday I went to sleep at nine and woke up at three the following afternoon-18 hours of sleep.   Last night I slept for another 12 hours.   I've finally gotten enough rest to realize how completely exhausted I am.    The exhaustion runs deep, literally down to the bones.

I am of little use to anyone right now.   Outside of work all I want to do is sleep and lay in bed listening to the cicadas during the day and the crickets at night.   I'm going to rest until I no longer feel fatigued.  I don't know how many weeks, months or years that will take, but it's what's necessary for me to heal.   Once I finally get the fatigue under control, the anger will dissipate and I will be myself again.   It will take longer than I like, but acceptance is finally setting in.  

Womaninbliss is right, I shouldn't look back.   It does no good, but it won't go away.   I'm doing absolutely amazingly well on my job.   There was this complex conversion project that was dropped months ago when the programmer left, and suddenly the client wanted it done.  It got handed to me.   I'm doing an absolutely amazing job with it.   I figured out his code, rewrote the incorrect parts of it and tested it and got it close to working within hours, plus I'm doing another project for another team and I'm knocking that out of the park as well.    They absolutely love me.   I have a boyfriend that absolutely cherishes me.    My ex-husband has finally wrapped his brain around just how much I do, and what an amazing job I've done and he's bending over backwards to treat me with respect.   My son is an absolutely amazing young man.   I made it all happen.   I should be happy, but I'm not.

I'm not depressed.   I'm eating well, I'm sleeping, I'm focused at work, I don't feel hopeless, I just feel completely and utterly destroyed.   All of these voices are coming at me, screaming out of the past.   Reminders of how I was never good enough, never, ever enough.   

I will never forget my first fight with my boyfriend.   There was something going on at work and he told me how I could handle it better, and I totally lost it.    I wanted his support, the last thing I needed was for him to raise the bar on me.    I just wanted him to comfort me, not tell me how to be better.   He misunderstood at first, and it sort of spun out of control.   I wrote him a long email explaining how I could never hit the bar, because if I came close, everyone always raised it, wanting more and better.   Constantly more and better.   My boyfriend got it, and he never let go of it.   He never, ever raises the bar on me.  Who I am is good enough for him.   He is loving and supportive.

I'm fine when I'm with him, I'm fine when I'm focusing at work, but outside of that, I feel on the verge of total collapse.   Years of insults, abuse, cruelty have left me just gutted.   I made it through the gauntlet, but I'm not intact.   I'm just absolutely devastated and all I want to do is hide from the world.   I'm constantly on the verge of tears.   I just feel so completely and totally destroyed.   I know I should put the past behind me, but I just can't.   It was too much.   Way, way too much.    I feel totally overwhelmed by the horror show that has been my life.   I'm so sad, so horribly devastated I don't even know how to continue.   I live for the day when I can finally withdraw from the world and never have to leave the house again.   That day is coming, it just can't get here soon enough.   I feel like that's the only way I'll ever be able to close the door on the past, if I know I'm safe from it.   I don't feel safe at all.   Not at all.   I've got everything I've ever wanted and all I want now is to vanish.

I've spent a great deal of time thinking last night because I just can't sleep.   What is my problem?   For years and years I had a great sense of humor, and that helped me cope.   Something inside me changed and I've been trying to figure out what it is.   I temporarily lost my moorings when I lost my friend.   He really did keep me in balance.   But I was finally getting over it and moving on with my life.   I had planned an amazing trip to Alaska and I was starting to work at pulling myself together and then it started.   

I've been bullied and abused for years.   I learned how to not take it personally.   Taking things personally makes it harder to heal.   But the thing was, it was always direct.   I always knew who I was dealing with and what they were up to.   Right around the time of my trip to Alaska, I started getting hit with a barrage of fake profiles here on EP, and also through my yahoo account.   The ones in my yahoo account could have been spam, it's hard to tell whether or not they were tied together.   And that's the problem, it's hard to tell.    These profiles would pop into existence here on EP, comment on something I wrote, and then they would be abandoned.   That was the usual pattern.   There was one that kept contacting me.    It was maddening.   I loved EP up until that point.   Now I just want to hide away from the world.    I felt like I was walking around with a target on my back.   There was no way I could prove who did it, and there was no way I could stop it.   It was terrorizing.   I felt helpless and infuriated.   I can deal with things provided they are head on, but I don't cope well at all with things that are done obliquely.   I don't know what the intention was, but it was not good.   Fake profiles are never, ever a friendly gesture, they are always malicious.   If you have something kind to say, you have nothing to lose by saying it as yourself.   It was a situation that I did not, and to this day do not know how to cope with.   It took away my sense of security, it took away my freedom to express myself, because I always felt like I had to look over my shoulder.   I'm still looking over my shoulder.    It was the barrage of fake profiles that left me bitter and angry, and I can't forgive because honestly I don't know who I should forgive or if there even is anything to forgive.   Is it possible that it was just a series of coincidences?    It's the not knowing.   It's knowing that I will never know.   It was horribly damaging and I haven't found a way to cope with it and it's eating me up inside.

I've tried so hard all of my life to be kind and generous and it hasn't made a damn bit of difference.   I could never dig deep enough or give enough to make it mean anything.  I'm angry with myself for falling short.

I'm exhausted and burned out and I don't have any more to give anymore.   Except to my boyfriend.    He gives me hope and strength.    He is so accomplished, and yet so humble.   He has never acted like I owe him anything.   He has absolutely no arrogance, so he's always learning.   He's strong and resilient, and yet adorably boyish and whimsical.   He's also a really, really nice guy.   Just an absolute sweetheart.   Caring and giving.   He's the most loving man I've ever met--loving in a good way.   The kind of loving where he can take care of me and protect me.   I absolutely adore him and two years later, I still spend every day falling in love with him all over again.

I have this amazing love, a fantastic job and yet I'm still trying to figure out how to be happy.   One of the things that I truly admired about DB was how much he didn't care.   One of the things I learned from watching him was that you can't hurt someone who doesn't care.   It's not like he had walls up to protect himself, he wasn't defensive, he just simply didn't give a shit.   I have a really hard time not caring, although lately, it's come a whole lot easier to me.   For the last month I haven't felt much of anything.   This is the most thinking I've done in weeks.  

It started yesterday morning.   I was thinking about my lost friend.   When I lost him, I also lost my sense of humor.   I haven't been able to figure out how to get it back.   I still have this pain in my chest that just won't go away.   It's no longer a huge ball of anger, and it doesn't feel like an alien is about to burst out of my chest, but it's there.   And that's the real problem.   When I lost him, I lost my balance and I've never quite regained it.   In order to find happiness again, I need to figure out a way to heal that pain.

Gandhi also said "no one can hurt you without your permission."   And I have no one but myself to blame because I let so many people hurt me.   I didn't try to protect myself.   I loved people without walls or reservations and I never should have done that.    As sad as it is, you have to keep walls up and be kind to people only in small, measured doses.   When I was first married I was devoted to my husband, but he treated me like garbage until I started fighting back and played tit for tat.   With my sick friend I was willing to go all out to help him and all I wanted in return was for him to learn to be independent and self-sufficient, but that was never going to happen.   I couldn't get through to him.   He just love the attention.    DB always claimed that he wasn't "relationship" material.   I was hoping that if I could show him enough kindness that I could break through the hard shell of selfishness that surrounded him, but that was never going to happen.  I did a lot for him and I only ever asked him for two things.   One was to write me a story one day when I was having a really hard day.   It wouldn't have cost him anything, but he couldn't do it.   The other one was to be nice to me when I lost a friend, again, he just couldn't do it.   He was too small and selfish.    If he could have learned to give a little bit, his relationships would have been much more satisfying, but he was too arrogant to learn anything.    I accidentally read his girlfriend's blog once.   I hadn't been on in a while and she had changed her username, otherwise I would have avoided it.   But I saw two questions posted in the Q&A section, and then I saw the blogs and was curio

us, and it was a heartbreaking post about how completely awful he was to her.    In retrospect, I don't hold a grudge against him for how he treated me, because obviously he couldn't stand me, but the way he treated the woman he professed to love says everything.    Nothing I did there even made the tiniest little dent.   Another friend of his also wrote a blog about how horrible he was to her.

The worst person I ever met was PR.   He was selfish, self-centered and arrogant to the core.    He was the definition of an awful person.   He blew his mind out on cocaine and figured he'd kill a couple of kids to settle an imaginary grudge.    It was always all about him.   I spent years giving to him, helping him, being there for him, and it was a complete and utter waste of time, energy and resources.   He didn't learn a damn thing about anything.   Ever.

My last two jobs I tried showing my bosses about how quality and efficiency could increase profits, but they didn't give two teeny, tiny little bitty shits.   They knew better than me.   Too arrogant to learn a damn thing.

But I guess I've been arrogant, too.    I do know what I'm doing.    I know exactly what I'm talking about and I could have made a difference in people's lives, had they been receptive, but I was arrogant to presume that they wanted better.    If they wanted better, they would have had better.   They had exactly what they wanted, who was I to try to change things?

My boyfriend wanted better.   But he actually said he wanted better.   He let me in, and I've made a huge difference in his life, and he's made a huge difference in mine.   My current job, they said they were looking for extraordinary people, so I've given them extraordinary and they appreciate me.

I'm not going to be arrogant anymore.   I'm not going to assume I have anything to offer anyone.   I'm happy in my own little world, doing my own thing.   I love my job, I love and adore my boyfriend with all my heart, that's all I need.   Everyone else has to find their own happiness, it's not my responsibility.   And I'm not giving anyone else permission to hurt me ever again.

The boys are gone this week.  I have the house all to myself.   My boyfriend won't be able to go away on vacation until spring so I decided to take the week off to clean the house.    I'm pulling everything out of cupboards, closets, shelves.    I shampooed the carpets, cleaned out the fridge, freezer and pantry.   Everything is getting cleaned.    They physical activity is doing me good, but it's been an overwhelming project.    I'm not going to get everything done that I wanted to get done this week, but I'll keep plugging away at it on the weekends.   At least I've gotten a good start.   But the more I clean, the angrier I get.

I am deeply and profoundly burned out.   I'm so angry I barely even sleep at night anymore.    For years I tried to be the change I wanted to see in the world, but it didn't make one damn bit of difference.   I tried to be kind and generous and be a force for good, but it didn't matter at all.   Not one little bit.    They say people look back on their deathbed and wished they had made more time for friends and family.   Looking back, I wish I had made less.   i wish I had put myself first more often.

I have no trouble putting my boyfriend first, because he always puts me first.    For years and years I kept telling myself not to expect so much from people.   I made excuses for them, that caring and giving was harder for them than it was for me.   But my boyfriend has proved to me that it's not that I expected too much from people, it's that I didn't expect nearly enough.   

Over the years, the more I gave, the more people expected from me.   If I said "but I did this, this and this for you" the standard response was "but that was yesterday, what have you done for me today?"    I could never, ever, ever do enough for anyone.    And it just drained the life out of me.  I'm angry, resentful and bitter.   I'm glad my boyfriend is away right now, it's giving me time to pull everything out of the closets and sort it all out, both literally and figuratively.   The problem is, it's not one person or one situation, it's a pervasive theme in my life.   The only way it's going to change is if I start taking care of my own needs first.    I don't like walls, they keep the bad out, but they also keep the good out.   But right now, I need them.   I'm bricking up my life and keeping everyone at bay until I get myself sorted out.    

I was hoping maybe once I got my house clean that it would make me feel better, lighter, but oddly enough, it seems to have had the opposite effect.   I keep debating, is it better to feel the rage, to give it room, with that help me work it out?   Or is it better to try to distract myself and not feel it?    Right now, it's there and there's nothing I can do about it.    It's not a person or a situation, it's all of them, it's everything.    I've tried so hard for years not to get angry with people and to be forgiving, but I've lost my grip on it.    I'm so very, very bitter.    All of the arrogance, selfishness and cruelty that I've seen over the years is just bubbling up.   I can't even name a specific thing that is bothering me.   It's just a general overall sense of having given everything my best and having failed miserably.   I never made a difference, never got through to anyone.   All of my effort, completely and totally a waste of time.   It infuriates me.    I put so many other people's happiness above my own, and got exactly what I deserve.   Burnout and misery.    I want nothing more to do with the world.   I will be so happy when my boyfriend and I are married.    I will be able to become a total recluse and shut the world out completely.